Sebastián Romero Radigales

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Sebastián Romero Radigales (born January 20, 1884 in Graus , Huesca province , † July 31, 1970 in Madrid ) was a Spanish diplomat who was posthumously honored as Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

Sebastián Romero Radigales was born in Graus in 1884 as the third son of Ellena Radigales and Senator Evaristo de Romero. After finishing school, he studied law and then embarked on a career in the diplomatic service.

Career

During the tenure of Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1925 he became the Spanish consul in Bulgaria . In 1927 he was appointed consul in Romania . In 1928 he married Elena Cutavá Anino, who had Greek parents and was born in Romania. The marriage remained childless, they adopted a girl from his wife's family.

In October 1934, Sebastián Romero Radigales was sent to Chicago by the Spanish President Niceto Alcalá Zamora and on December 7th he received his authentication certificate from the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt . During the Spanish Civil War between 1937 and 1939 he was a representative of the Spanish government under Francisco Franco in Greece. In April 1943, during the German occupation, he became Consul General of Athens and Thessaloniki , replacing the diplomat Eduardo Gasset.

Rescuing Jews

At the end of January 1943, the German side finally asked Spain to repatriate Jews of Spanish nationality from Greece or to agree to their inclusion in “general Jewish measures”. As the only neutral state, Spain initially refused admission. It was not until March 15, 1943 that the government reversed this decision. However, citizenship should be strictly checked and the repatriates should be transported to a third country after a few days with the help of Jewish relief efforts. Immediately threatened by deportation to Auschwitz were primarily more than 500 Spanish Jews living in Saloniki .

In 1943, Radigales turned out to be the Spanish diplomat who was most committed to the Jews. At his own risk he contradicted the announcement that the Spanish government had no interest in the fate of the Jews of Saloniki and prevented them from being deported immediately. After he was informed of the revised Spanish position, Radigales tried to circumvent the strict criteria for recognition of Spanish nationality. Without any backing, he planned to be evacuated by Swedish ships. In the event of arrests, he transmitted the data of the deportation train to the Spanish embassy in Berlin in order to have his protégés removed. His activities were reprimanded on July 1, 1943 by the Spanish Foreign Minister, who informed his ambassador in Berlin that he should curb Radigales' “excessive zeal”. Because Spain delayed the repatriation measures, 367 "exchange Jews" were deported from Saloniki to the Bergen-Belsen camp on August 2nd . Only in February 1944 did these Jews arrive in Spain.

At the beginning of 1944 these processes were repeated in Athens, which was now also under German occupation. 200 Jews of Spanish descent lived there, 155 of whom were arrested in March 1944. Radigales once again urged generous recognition of citizenship and - in vain - rapid repatriation. The arrested Jews were ultimately saved via Bergen-Belsen and Switzerland.

After the end of the war

In 1954, at the age of 70, he retired from the diplomatic service and spent his time in the family home in the "Villa Elena" in Graus (Huesca). He died in Madrid in 1970 after a brief illness.

Awards

  • On May 21, 1951, Sebastián Romero Radigales was honored by the President of the Greek Red Cross for his services to the nation during the German occupation.
  • On July 18, 1954, he was awarded the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Mérito Civil in Spain.

Posthumously

Sebastián Romero Radigales was posthumously honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 2014. He is the seventh Spaniard to have received this award and a place of honor in Yad Vashem as a non-Jewish individual.
In Edward Serotta's Greek short film A Bookstore in Six Chapters , his rescue operation is described using the example of an operation in his private apartment.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Real Academia de la Historia ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Biografía escrita por Matilde Morcillo Rosillo , Profesora Titular de Historia Contemporánea en la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Campus de Albacete) (Spanish) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blgrah.rah.es
  2. ↑ Bernd Rother: Spain - between help and restriction . In: Wolfgang Benz, Juliane Wetzel: Solidarity and Help for Jews during the Nazi Era: Regional Studies 3 - Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Albania, Belarus. Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-932482-18-2 , pp. 147/148.
  3. ↑ Bernd Rother: The Rescue of Spanish and Portuguese Jews from Bergen-Belsen 1943-1945. In: Help or Trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution . (Contributions to the history of the National Socialist persecution in Northern Germany, issue 10), Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 . P. 43.
  4. ↑ Bernd Rother: Spain - between help and restriction . In: Wolfgang Benz, Juliane Wetzel: Solidarity and Help for Jews during the Nazi Era: Regional Studies 3 - Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Albania, Belarus. Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-932482-18-2 , pp. 150-151.
  5. ↑ Sebastián Romero Radigales on the website of Yad Vashem (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Romero Radigales, Sebastián
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Graus , Huesca Province
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1970
Place of death Madrid